Jeri & Mike
Customer StoryThe Beginning
Mike and I spent many months searching for a sizable lot which was isolated from planned developments and provided the rural and scenic beauty we had envisioned – the next step was to find a custom home builder who could share our vision for a home that would complement our challenging lifestyle. Our perfect home had to incorporate a large home office, accommodate our four children and family dog and include a variety of specialized outdoor living spaces. At the same time, however, it had to also embody a contracted quaintness for those times when Jeri was home alone.
Inspired by his tour home, we were equally impressed and truly appreciative of Fred’s openness, honesty and love of his craft – all of which was immediately apparent during our very first meeting with him. Not only did we immediately gain confidence in his abilities and work, but we had found a builder that would share our personal vision of our new home!
Fred immediately introduced us to his architect Dan Marshall. It was clear that their mutual respect for one another as professionals would translate into a very productive and rewarding collaboration. Throughout the ensuing design process, where our tablecloth drawings were transformed into architectural blueprints, we were fortunate to have found both a builder and an architect who were responsive to our creative input. The interaction we enjoyed with this team led to the design of a custom home that exceeded all of our collective expectations.
Choosing A Builder
We had a shared vision for our new family home, one that we had drawn many, many times on restaurant table clothes over a period of eight months. We were armed with hours of research on the internet and a formidable collection of topical books and magazines. After having interviewed three builders who offered only slight alterations to their cookie cutter home plans, we were fortunate enough to view one of Fred Didier’s custom homes on the Luxury Home Tour. The obvious attention to architectural detail, the logical flow of traffic patterns within the house, the overall functionality and the grand woodwork were stunning. There was no doubt that this builder put his unique signature on the homes he built! And did we mention the woodwork? It embodied the ideals of a custom built home!
Building The House
After choosing Fred to build our dream home, it was time for many decisions to be made. This seemingly daunting endeavor was made simple through Fred’s organized and logical approach to the building process. We were immediately given a folder and timeline which made each of these decisions not only simple but fun!
The subsequent communication between Fred and all of his sub-contractors remained both open and continuous. The cohesiveness of Fred’s team made the building process seamless and very enjoyable. Never did we imagine how much fun we would have building a custom home – something that is directly attributable to the solid working relationship that Fred and Dan had with one another. And never did I imagine that the end of this long process would result in our calling each of these gentlemen our trusted friends.
And when they individually or collectively didn’t hit the mark, we didn’t pull any punches but neither did Fred ever flinch. We could be as brutally honest as we needed to be and each and every time Fred and Dan would listen carefully to our concerns and meet the challenges we imposed – that was an amazing experience.
The Results
The only real surprise throughout the entire process was when Mike walked through our finished home for the first time – he was completely overwhelmed by it. While Jeri had been intimately involved in every detail of the project, Mike’s business travels left him with a disjointed idea of what our home would look like when completed. As a tribute to Fred and Dan, we still sit in our home and almost every day we find ourselves examining the incredible detail that went into it – we owe our sincere gratitude to Fred and his team for building such a wonderful home.
As with any new house, we have occasionally experienced small problems as the house itself settled into its new lot and the technologies within it learned to complement one another. Fred’s pride in his homes is always again exemplified by his timely responses to those problems and his quick and efficient resolution of them.
Building our house was a phenomenal experience and we would happily do it again – but only with Fred taking the lead!
